We lacked aggression: Magilton

Jim Magilton admitted he took no positives out of Cliftonville’s Boyle Sports Premiership clash with Glentoran at Solitude yesterday.

After falling behind to Jack Malone’s header, the Reds levelled when Dean McMaster dispatched a wonderful free-kick home before the break, with the hosts passing up three glorious second-half opportunities to take the lead with Ben Quinn drawing a save from visiting keeper Andrew Mills, Brian Healy almost seizing on an undercooked backpass and Shaun Leppard touching an effort against the crossbar.

Failure to make their chances pay came back to haunt Cliftonville when Jordan Jenkins swept in an 83rd minute winner after a corner kick wasn’t fully cleared.

While he acknowledged that his side played well at stages, Magilton was in no mood to focus on anything other than the outcome.

“I just don’t like how we defended,” he said.

“I really don’t. Yeah, we had moments but it’s not acceptable, not acceptable at all.

“We’ve conceded corner after corner after corner and we were begging for one of them Glentoran lads to score a goal.

“You can’t keep doing what we’re doing. Defensively, our two centre-halves I thought were really poor today.

“If you’re not going to win your headers and not get high enough up the pitch, especially when we’re dominant, then you’re not going to win games of football.

“It was the same for 45 minutes against Larne, we weren’t aggressive enough. We lacked that aggression all over the pitch at times.

“We didn’t get anywhere near first contact and games can be decided on set-pieces, as has been outlined many, many times.”